Peace Corps Careers and Employment | Indeed.com Q&A About Peace Corps The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States government. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance; helping people outside the United States to understand American culture; and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. The work is generally related to social – more... and economic development. Each program participant, a Peace Corps Volunteer, is an American citizen, typically with a college degree, who works abroad for a period of 24 months after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. After 24 months of service, volunteers can request an extension of service. The program was established by Executive Order 10924, issued by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961, announced by televised broadcast March 2, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293).

The act declares the program's purpose as follows: To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower. Between 1961 and 2013, over 210,000 Americans joined the Peace Corps and served in 139 countries. – less Peace Corps | Psychology Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia This article needs rewriting to enhance its relevance to psychologists.. Please help to improve this page yourself if you can.. The Peace Corps was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961 , and authorized by United States Congress on September 22, 1961 , with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293).

The Peace Corps Act declares the purpose of the Peace Corps to be: “to promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.” Since 1960, more than 195,000 people have served as Peace Corps volunteers in 139 countries. [1] [2] [3] Contents The Peace Corps sends volunteers around the globe, to more than 70 countries, to work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in the areas of education, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. The program officially has three goals: To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans [4] The Peace Corps works by first announcing its availability to foreign governments. These governments then determine areas in which the organization can be involved.

The organization then matches the requested assignments to its pool of applicants and sends those volunteers with the appropriate skills to the countries that first made the requests. Selection of volunteers Edit Until about 1967, applicants to the Peace Corps had to pass a placement test that tested "general aptitude" (knowledge of various skills needed for Peace Corps assignments) and language aptitude. After an address from Kennedy, who was introduced by Rev. Russell Fuller of Memorial Christian Church, Disciples of Christ , on August 28 , 1961 , the first group of volunteers left for Ghana and Tanzania . The program was formally authorized by Congress on September 22 , 1961 , and within two years over 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers were serving in 44 countries. This number would jump to 15,000 in June of 1966, which was the largest number in the organization's history. Early controversy Edit The organization experienced major controversy in its first year of operation. On October 13 , 1961 , a postcard was written by a volunteer named Margery Jane Michelmore in Nigeria to a friend in the U.S.

She described her situation in Nigeria as "squalor and absolutely primitive living conditions." [5] [6] However, this postcard never made it out of the country. [6] The Ibadan University College Students Union demanded deportation and accused the volunteers of being "America's international spies " and the project as "a scheme designed to foster neocolonialism ." [7] Soon the international press picked up the story, leading several people in the U.S. administration to question the future of the program as a whole. [8] Nigerian students protested the program, and the American volunteers sequestered themselves and eventually began a hunger strike . [6] After several days, the Nigerian students agreed to open a dialogue with the Americans. [8] Independent status File:1965 PCV card.jpg By 1966, more than 15,000 volunteers were working in the field, the largest number in the Peace Corps' history. [1] In July 1971, President Richard Nixon , an opponent of the program, brought the Peace Corps under the umbrella agency ACTION .

President Jimmy Carter , an advocate of the program, said that his mother, who had served as a nurse in the program, had "one of the most glorious experiences of her life" in the Peace Corps. [9] In 1979, he declared it fully autonomous in an executive order. This independent status would be further secured when Congress passed legislation in 1981 to make the organization an independent federal agency. Programs diversified File:Volunteers oath, Mauritania, September 2007.jpg Although the earliest Peace Corps volunteers were typically thought of as educational, agriculture and community development generalists, the Peace Corps had a variety of requests for technical personnel essentially from the start. For example, geologists were among the first volunteers requested by Ghana, an early country for the Peace Corps. An article in Geotimes (a trade publication) in 1963 reviewed the program up to that time, with a follow-up history of Peace Corps geoscientists appearing in that publication in 2004 [10] . During the Nixon Administration the Peace Corps had foresters, computer scientists, and small business advisors among its volunteers.

In 1982, President Reagan appointee director Loret Miller Ruppe initiated several new business-related programs. For the first time, a large number of conservative and Republican volunteers joined the contingent of overseas volunteers, and the organization continued to reflect the evolving political and social conditions in the United States. Funding cuts during the early 1980s dropped the number of volunteers to 5,380, its lowest level since the organization's early years. Funding began to increase in 1985, and Congress passed an initiative to raise the number of volunteers to 10,000 by 1992. After the September 11, 2001, attacks alerted the nation to growing anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East , President George W. Bush pledged to double the size of the organization within five years as a part of the War on Terrorism . For the 2004 fiscal year, Congress passed a budget increase at $325 million, $30 million above that of 2003 but $30 million below the President's request.

In 2008, Barack Obama also said he would double the size of the Peace Corps, [11] giving the rising unemployed from the recession a chance to give back to the country. For many, the Peace Corps is a way for people usually lacking employment a chance to learn some skills. The Peace Corps intended to double the number of volunteers it sent abroad by 2007 in accordance with President Bush's request in 2002. According to Joseph Kennedy, "The American reputation has taken a hit in the last couple of years. The need for the Peace Corps couldn't be more urgent. The Peace Corps shows what is best in America, the generosity of spirit." The Peace Corps is trying to get more diverse volunteers of different ages. This is important so that the Peace Corps can look, according to former director Gaddi Vasquez , "more like America." An article published by the Harvard International Review in 2006 argues that the time has come not only to expand the Peace Corps but also to revisit its mission and equip it with new technology to transform it into a 21st-century engine for peace through the global sharing of knowledge.

In 1961 only 1% of volunteers were over 50, compared with 5% today. Ethnic minorities currently comprise 17% of volunteers. [12] Married couples are welcome and can work together. Peace Corps Response Edit Peace Corps Response, formerly named the Crisis Corps, was created by Peace Corps Director Mark Gearan in 1996. [13] On November 19, 2007 Peace Corps Director Ronald Tschetter announced that Crisis Corps will be changing its name to Peace Corps Response. [14] This change is the result of an ongoing effort by the Peace Corps to better define the work of its volunteers. The change to Peace Corps Response will allow Peace Corps to broaden their approach to their five programming areas to include projects that do not necessarily rise to the level of a ‘crisis.’ The program sends former Peace Corps volunteers to foreign countries to take on short-term, high-impact assignments that typically range from three to six months in duration. Peace Corps Response volunteers generally receive the same allowances and benefits as their Peace Corps counterparts, including round-trip transportation, living and readjustment allowances, and medical care.

Minimum qualifications for Crisis Corps volunteers include completion of at least one year of Peace Corps service, excluding training, in addition to medical and legal clearances. The Crisis Corps title will be retained as a unique branch within Peace Corps Response, designed for volunteers who are deployed to true “crisis” situations, such as disaster relief following hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions and other catastrophes. Laws governing the Peace Corps 1961 - 10924 - Establishment and administration of the Peace Corps in the Department of State (Kennedy) 1962 - 11041 - Continuance and administration of the Peace Corps in the Department of State (Kennedy) 1971 - 11603 - Assigning additional functions to the Director of ACTION (Nixon) 1979 - 12137 - The Peace Corps (Carter) Time limits on employment Edit Peace Corps employees receive time-limited appointments and most employees are limited to a maximum of five years (60 months) of employment with the agency. This time-limit is referred to as the "five-year rule" and was established to ensure that Peace Corps' staff remain fresh and innovative.

Another rule related to the "five year rule" specifies that former Peace Corps employees cannot be re-employed by Peace Corps until they have been out of the agency's employment for the same amount of time that they worked for the Peace Corps. Service as a Peace Corps Volunteer overseas is not counted for the purposes of either of these rules.[ How to reference and link to summary or text ] Peace Corps in the media Edit Hundreds of Returned Peace Corps volunteers have written books about their countries of service [15] but five books that are among the most notable for capturing the positive and the negative of the Peace Corps experience are the following: Published in 1969, Moritz Thomsen 's Living Poor recounts the author's service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador.

[16] RPCV Paul Theroux said that Living Poor was the best book he ever read on the Peace Corps experience [17] and Tom Miller wrote that Thomsen was "one of the great American expatriate writers of the 20th century." [16] "And as an expat, he was free to judge us all, an undertaking he finessed with acute observations, self-deprecation, and a flavorful frame of reference that ranged from a Tchaikovsky symphony to a Sealy Posturpedic mattress." [16] Alan Weiss's 1968 account of Peace Corps training, High Risk, High Gain, has been called "perhaps the most obscure, least known, and most unread" of all the great books written about the Peace Corps experience. [18] Trainees in those days were classified by risk and by gain and Weiss discovered in his training days that he had been classified as High Risk/High Gain, a potential "Supervolunteer" or a potential "crash and burn." [18] Weiss's book is funny, outrageous and sad but also valuable because it captures the “craziness” of those early years at the Peace Corps.

[18] George Packer's The Village of Waiting (1988) is "one of the most wrenchingly honest books ever written by a white person about Africa, a bracing antidote to romantic authenticity myths and exotic horror stories alike," wrote Matt Steinglass. [19] Isak Dinesen, Packer notes, wrote of waking in the Kenyan highlands and thinking, "Here I am, where I ought to be." Packer himself woke up sweating, hungry, "mildly at ease, or mildly anxious. But never where I ought to be." [19] For a history of the Peace Corps' early days, Coates Redmond's Come as You Are recounts the birth of the Peace Corps and how it was literally thrown together in a matter of weeks. "The book works as a charming, first-person history of the people who made the corps what it was in its formative years," says Charles DeBenedetti at the University of Toledo. [20] "This book is highly readable and essential to understand the evolution of the unique Peace Corps spirit and style that continues to characterize the agency almost 45 years later," wrote Maureen Carroll, an early Peace Corps volunteer.

[21] Tom Bissell served as a Peace Corps volunteer for a few months in Uzbekistan in 1996 before he "early terminated". However, Bissell felt he had really failed the people he joined the Peace Corps to help, so he returned to Uzbekistan in 2001 to write Chasing the Sea about the Aral Sea. However, "the secret, personal point of the journey was revisiting this failure of mine, to try to make something up to the country and people I’d abandoned," says Bissell. [22] "My ambitions were actually pretty modest. I wanted to write a book that everyone who traveled to Central Asia would want to read, and I wanted to write a book that everyone who joins the Peace Corps has pressed upon them," Bissell said. [22] [22] See also Peace Corps Peace Corps A S p e c i al T r i b u t e - 1st Director of the Peace Corps - November 9, 1915 - January 18, 2011 - “The Peace Corps represents some, if not all, of the best virtues in this society.

- It stands for everything that America has ever stood for. It stands for everything we believe in and hope to achieve in the world.” - Courtesy, Wikipedia - Source, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum - Boston Author, Rowland Scherman, Peace Corps [Photo taken in 1961] Sargent Shriver served as first Director of the Peace Corps (to which this picture relates). He was also US Ambassador to France, and US Vice-Presidential candidate in 1972 - The work of Sargent Shriver - A Legacy at Home and Abroad - History of the Peace Corps - Photo Courtesy, the Peace Corps Read article on the Peace Corps by Samuel AS. Farr of NDU Press at: - --- - The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government , as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand U.S. culture, and helping Americans understand the cultures of other countries. Generally, the work is related to social and economic development.

- Each program participant, (aka Peace Corps Volunteer), is an American citizen, typically with a college degree [or non-college degree citizen], who works abroad for a period of 24 months after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. - It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorized by the Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The act declares the program's purpose as follows: To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries.

Many former volunteers have risen to national prominence, not least the four who have served as Peace Corps Directors. -- Peace Corps History - Courtesy, Wikipedia - Read more about the Peace Corps at the following website: - - "I want to express my thanks to you, as a graduate of the Michigan of the East, Harvard University. - I come here tonight delighted to have the opportunity to say one or two words about this campaign that is coming into the last three weeks. - I think in many ways it is the most important campaign since 1933, mostly because of the problems which press upon the United States, and the opportunities which will be presented to us in the 1960s. The opportunity must be seized, through the judgment of the President, and the vigor of the executive, and the cooperation of the Congress. Through these I think we can make the greatest possible difference. - How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?

On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past. - Therefore, I am delighted to come to Michigan, to this university, because unless we have those resources in this school, unless you comprehend the nature of what is being asked of you, this country can't possibly move through the next 10 years in a period of relative strength. - So I come here tonight to go to bed! But I also come here tonight to ask you to join in the effort... - This university...this is the longest short speech I've ever made...therefore, I'll finish it! Let me say in conclusion, this University is not maintained by its alumni, or by the state, merely to help its graduates have an economic advantage in the life struggle. There is certainly a greater purpose, and I'm sure you recognize it. Therefore, I do not apologize for asking for your support in this campaign.

I come here tonight asking your support for this country over the next decade. - Peace Corps (U.S.) This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website Peace Corps (U.S.) United States of America Description of the flag The Peace Corps "is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a governmental agency of the same name. Each program participant, or Peace Corps Volunteer, is an American citizen who commits to working abroad in an assignment for the organization for a period of twenty-seven months. Generally, the work to be performed is related to international development. Specialties include education, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. In addition to its mandate of providing technical assistance in these areas, Peace Corps is also charged with increasing mutual international understanding. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals, which are providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States understand the culture of the United States, and helping United States people understand the cultureof other countries.

It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The Peace Corps Act declares the purpose of the Peace Corps to be: "To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower." Since 1961, nearly 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps For the full list of countries where the Peace Corps are (were) serving, please see: The flag of the Peace Corps is the logo ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US-PeaceCorps-Logo.svg ) on the following pictures: (both pictures taken in June 2009).

For more please visit Peace Corps (official website): Esteban Rivera, 10 January 2010 THE EVERYTHING 4 LESS STORE :: PEACE CORPS LANGUAGE LEARNING E-BOOK COLLECTION 62+ COURSES PEACE CORPS LANGUAGE LEARNING E-BOOK COLLECTION 62+ COURSES THE ULTIMATE PEACE CORPS LANGUAGE LEARNING E-BOOK COLLECTION. COURSES AND GUIDES CREATED FOR THE PEACE CORPS FOR THE USE OF VOLUNTEERS IN THEIR SERVICE. INCLUDES 62 PEACE CORPS LANGUAGE LEARNING E-BOOKS IN PDF TEXT FORMAT ON 1 CD-ROM DISK. ALSO INCLUDES 10 MORE RARE LANGUAGE LEARNING E-BOOKS (SEE BELOW). The Peace Corps is an independent United States federal agency. The Peace Corps was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961 and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961 with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293).

The Peace Corps Act declares the purpose of the Peace Corps to be: ï¿½to promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.ï¿½ Since 1960, more than 187,000 people have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in 139 countries. HERE IS WHAT IS INCLUDED Albanian Language Competencies Kenya: American Peace Corps Off to Safety - allAfrica.com Kenya: American Peace Corps Off to Safety By Kenneth Ogosia Nairobi — Could they be agents of hope who ran away from the Kenyan crisis? It is now official that the American Peace Corps are not in Kenya following the post-elections violence. With the delay in the formation of a coalition government agreed upon by President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga, the Western experts multi-professional services may continue to be missed.

Although they were evacuated during the Kenyan post-elections violence, the American Peace Corps simply "ran away" from their core function of responding to crisis and spreading the gospel of peace in the world. The American embassy confirmed that they were evacuated to safety and they have not yet returned. Their core services in the zones hit by the crisis or places they worked before the eruption of violence are demanding their presence. Humanitarian Embassy spokesman T.J. Dowling said: "They may come back in May, but I am not sure of the date." Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said most of the Peace Corps were evacuated to Tanzania and others went back home as similar agents of philanthropy such as the Red Cross Society laboured to save the country from sinking in humanitarian crisis. A senior official in the ministry said schools and hospital authorities are calling for their return, but the Government of Kenya has no powers to dictate their work programmes. "It is true that their services were suspended because of the post-election violence, but now schools, hospitals, and research institutions are calling us to deploy them back. We don't have such powers." he said.

The Peace Corps' main mission is to be deployed to true "crisis" situations such as disaster relief following hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions. After the disputed presidential elections, Western experts supporting projects in Kenya as teachers, researchers, doctors and even missionaries are not yet back to their work stations. Following the post-election violence, they were evacuated even as local residents continued to butcher each other and burn one another's homes. Now that there is a stalemate in the formation of the Cabinet, the experts may take a long time to gain confidence that the peace process in Kenya is going to hold. Mr Dowling said " the programme to have the experts come back is on-going and the formation of a Cabinet, standing on the strong grounds of real power sharing, to convince all players that all is well, should be hastened. Funds will also be withheld until the process is done transparently." The American Peace Corps, who deploy hundreds of researchers, teachers, doctors and essential service staff withdrew their people to safety while over 350,000 Kenyans were holed up in pathetic camps. The Peace Corps is an independent US federal agency.

It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorised by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The Peace Corps Act declares their purpose to be: "To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available, to interested countries and areas, men and women of the United States, qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship, if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower." Since 1960, more than 187,000 people have served as Peace Corps volunteers in 139 countries. Peace Corps volunteers work in over 70 countries. They work with governments, schools, NGOs, and entrepreneurs in the areas of education, health, HIV and Aids, business, information technology, agriculture and the environment.

The programme officially has three goals: to help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers; to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served and, to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. Alerted the nation After the September 11, 2001 attacks alerted the nation to growing anti-US sentiment in the Middle East, President George W. Bush pledged to double the size of the organisation within five years as a part of the War on Terrorism. For the 2004 fiscal year, Congress passed a budget increase at $325 million, $30 million above that of 2003, but $30 million below the President's request. Now, the Peace Corps is trying to double the number of volunteers it sends abroad by 2007. This is in accordance with President Bush's request in 2002. He said: "The American reputation has taken a hit in the last couple of years. The need for the Peace Corps couldn't be more urgent. The Peace Corps shows what is best in America, the generosity of spirit. The Peace Corps is trying to get more diverse volunteers of different ages.

This is important so that the Peace Corps can look, according to former director Gaddi Vasquez, "more like America." In 1961, only 1 per cent of volunteers were over 50, compared with six percent today. Minimum qualification for Crisis Corps volunteers include completion of at least one year of Peace Corps service, excluding training, in addition to medical and legal clearances. Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media ( allAfrica.com ). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. AllAfrica publishes around 700 reports a day from more than 140 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals , representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica . To address comments or complaints, please Contact us .

Peace Corps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Peace Corps Vacant pending appointment by President Barack Obama , Director Vacant pending appointment by President Barack Obama , Deputy Director Website This article's introduction section may not adequately summarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines , please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. The Peace Corps was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1 , 1961 , and authorized by Congress on September 22 , 1961 , with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The Peace Corps Act declares the purpose of the Peace Corps to be: “to promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.” Since 1960, more than 195,000 people have served as Peace Corps volunteers in 139 countries.

[2] [3] [4] Contents 11 External links [ edit ] Purpose and function Countries that the Peace Corps currently works in (orange) and has worked in previously (purple). (See picture details for countries that are unhighlighted.) The Peace Corps sends volunteers around the globe, to more than 70 countries, to work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in the areas of education, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. The program officially has three goals: To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans [5] The Peace Corps works by first announcing its availability to foreign governments. These governments then determine areas in which the organization can be involved. The organization then matches the requested assignments to its pool of applicants and sends those volunteers with the appropriate skills to the countries that first made the requests. John F. Kennedy greets volunteers on August 28 , 1961 .

Following the end of the Second World War , various members of the United States Congress proposed bills to establish volunteer organizations in Developing Countries . In 1952 Senator Brien McMahon (D-Connecticut) proposed an "army" of young Americans to act as "missionaries of democracy." Privately funded nonreligious organizations began sending volunteers overseas during the 1950s. While President John F. Kennedy is credited with the creation of the Peace Corps, the first initiative came from Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. (D- Minnesota ), who introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years prior to JFK and his University of Michigan speech. In his autobiography The Education of a Public Man, Hubert Humphrey wrote: "There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world.

Many senators, including liberal ones, thought it silly and an unworkable idea. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better." Peace Corps headquarters at 1111 20th Street, NW in downtown Washington, D.C. Only in 1959, however, did the proposal for a national program of service abroad first receive serious attention in Washington when Congressman Henry S. Reuss of Wisconsin advanced the ideas of a “Point Four Youth Corps.” In 1960, he and Senator Richard L. Neuberger of Oregon introduced identical measures calling for a nongovernmental study of the “advisability and practicability” of such a venture. Both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee endorsed the idea of a study, the latter writing the Reuss proposal into the Mutual Security legislation then pending before it. In this form it became law in June 1960.

In August the Mutual Security Appropriations Act was enacted, making available $10,000 for the study, and in November ICA contracted with the Maurice Albertson , Andrew E. Rice, and Pauline E. Birkey of Colorado State University Research Foundation [6] to make the study. [7] John F. Kennedy first announced his own idea for such an organization during the 1960 presidential campaign at a late-night speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on October 14 . During a later speech in San Francisco, California on November 1, he dubbed this proposed organization the "Peace Corps." Critics of the program (including Kennedy's opponent, Richard M. Nixon ) claimed the program would be nothing but a haven for draft dodgers . Others doubted whether college-age volunteers had the necessary skills. The idea was popular among college students, however, and Kennedy continued to pursue it, asking respected academics such as Max Millikan and Chester Bowles to help him outline the organization and its goals.

During his inaugural address, Kennedy again promised to create the program: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." [8] [ edit ] Establishment and authorization Executive Order 10924 On March 1 , 1961 , Kennedy signed an Executive Order 10924 that officially started the Peace Corps. Concerned with the growing tide of revolutionary sentiment in the Third World, Kennedy saw the Peace Corps as a means of countering the notions of the " Ugly American " and " Yankee imperialism ," especially in the emerging nations of post-colonial Africa and Asia. [9] [10] On March 4 , Kennedy appointed his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver to be the program's first director. Shriver was tasked with fleshing out the organization, which he did with the help of Warren Wiggins and others [6] . Shriver and his think tank outlined the three major goals of the Peace Corps and decided the number of volunteers they needed to recruit. The program began recruiting volunteers that following July.

Until about 1967, applicants to the Peace Corps had to pass a placement test that tested "general aptitude" (knowledge of various skills needed for Peace Corps assignments) and language aptitude. After an address from Kennedy, who was introduced by Rev. Russell Fuller of Memorial Christian Church, Disciples of Christ , on August 28 , 1961 , the first group of volunteers left for Ghana and Tanzania . The program was formally authorized by Congress on September 22 , 1961 , and within two years over 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers were serving in 44 countries. This number would jump to 15,000 in June of 1966, which was the largest number in the organization's history. [ edit ] Early controversy The organization experienced major controversy in its first year of operation. On October 13 , 1961 , a postcard was written by a volunteer named Margery Jane Michelmore in Nigeria to a friend in the U.S. She described her situation in Nigeria as "squalor and absolutely primitive living conditions." [11] [12] However, this postcard never made it out of the country.

[12] The Ibadan University College Students Union demanded deportation and accused the volunteers of being "America's international spies " and the project as "a scheme designed to foster neocolonialism ." [13] Soon the international press picked up the story, leading several people in the U.S. administration to question the future of the program as a whole. [14] Nigerian students protested the program, and the American volunteers sequestered themselves and eventually began a hunger strike . [12] After several days, the Nigerian students agreed to open a dialogue with the Americans. [14] [ edit ] Independent status 1965 in-country identification card By 1966, more than 15,000 volunteers were working in the field, the largest number in the Peace Corps' history. [1] In July 1971, President Richard Nixon , an opponent of the program, brought the Peace Corps under the umbrella agency ACTION . President Jimmy Carter , an advocate of the program, said that his mother, who had served as a nurse in the program, had "one of the most glorious experiences of her life" in the Peace Corps.

[15] In 1979, he declared it fully autonomous in an executive order. This independent status would be further secured when Congress passed legislation in 1981 to make the organization an independent federal agency. [ edit ] Programs diversified Trainees swear in as volunteers in Mauritania in September 2007. Although the earliest Peace Corps volunteers were typically thought of as educational, agriculture and community development generalists, the Peace Corps had a variety of requests for technical personnel essentially from the start. For example, geologists were among the first volunteers requested by Ghana, an early country for the Peace Corps. An article in Geotimes (a trade publication) in 1963 reviewed the program up to that time, with a follow-up history of Peace Corps geoscientists appearing in that publication in 2004 [16] . During the Nixon Administration the Peace Corps had foresters, computer scientists, and small business advisors among its volunteers. In 1982, President Reagan appointee director Loret Miller Ruppe initiated several new business-related programs.

For the first time, a large number of conservative and Republican volunteers joined the contingent of overseas volunteers, and the organization continued to reflect the evolving political and social conditions in the United States. Funding cuts during the early 1980s dropped the number of volunteers to 5,380, its lowest level since the organization's early years. Funding began to increase in 1985, and Congress passed an initiative to raise the number of volunteers to 10,000 by 1992. After the September 11, 2001, attacks alerted the nation to growing anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East , President George W. Bush pledged to double the size of the organization within five years as a part of the War on Terrorism . For the 2004 fiscal year, Congress passed a budget increase at $325 million, $30 million above that of 2003 but $30 million below the President's request. In 2008, Barack Obama also said he would double the size of the Peace Corps, [17] giving the rising unemployed from the recession a chance to give back to the country.

For many, the Peace Corps is a way for people usually lacking employment a chance to learn some skills. The Peace Corps intended to double the number of volunteers it sent abroad by 2007 in accordance with President Bush's request in 2002. According to Joseph Kennedy, "The American reputation has taken a hit in the last couple of years. The need for the Peace Corps couldn't be more urgent. The Peace Corps shows what is best in America, the generosity of spirit." The Peace Corps is trying to get more diverse volunteers of different ages. This is important so that the Peace Corps can look, according to former director Gaddi Vasquez , "more like America." An article published by the Harvard International Review in 2006 argues that the time has come not only to expand the Peace Corps but also to revisit its mission and equip it with new technology to transform it into a 21st-century engine for peace through the global sharing of knowledge. In 1961 only 1% of volunteers were over 50, compared with 5% today. Ethnic minorities currently comprise 17% of volunteers. [1] Married couples are welcome and can work together.

[ edit ] Peace Corps Response Peace Corps Response, formerly named the Crisis Corps, was created by Peace Corps Director Mark Gearan in 1996. [18] On November 19, 2007 Peace Corps Director Ronald Tschetter announced that Crisis Corps will be changing its name to Peace Corps Response. [19] This change is the result of an ongoing effort by the Peace Corps to better define the work of its volunteers. The change to Peace Corps Response will allow Peace Corps to broaden their approach to their five programming areas to include projects that do not necessarily rise to the level of a ‘crisis.’ The program sends former Peace Corps volunteers to foreign countries to take on short-term, high-impact assignments that typically range from three to six months in duration. Peace Corps Response volunteers generally receive the same allowances and benefits as their Peace Corps counterparts, including round-trip transportation, living and readjustment allowances, and medical care. Minimum qualifications for Crisis Corps volunteers include completion of at least one year of Peace Corps service, excluding training, in addition to medical and legal clearances.

The Crisis Corps title will be retained as a unique branch within Peace Corps Response, designed for volunteers who are deployed to true “crisis” situations, such as disaster relief following hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions and other catastrophes. [ edit ] Laws governing the Peace Corps 1961 - 10924 - Establishment and administration of the Peace Corps in the Department of State (Kennedy) 1962 - 11041 - Continuance and administration of the Peace Corps in the Department of State (Kennedy) 1971 - 11603 - Assigning additional functions to the Director of ACTION (Nixon) 1979 - 12137 - The Peace Corps (Carter) [ edit ] Time limits on employment Peace Corps employees receive time-limited appointments and most employees are limited to a maximum of five years (60 months) of employment with the agency. This time-limit is referred to as the "five-year rule" and was established to ensure that Peace Corps' staff remain fresh and innovative.

Another rule related to the "five year rule" specifies that former Peace Corps employees cannot be re-employed by Peace Corps until they have been out of the agency's employment for the same amount of time that they worked for the Peace Corps. Service as a Peace Corps Volunteer overseas is not counted for the purposes of either of these rules.[ citation needed ] [ edit ] Directors of the Peace Corps Jody K. Olsen is the Acting Director of the Peace Corps and since 2002 has been the Agency’s Deputy Director. Director September 2006–2008 G.W. Bush The third RPCV to head the agency, Tschetter served in India in the mid 1960s. Confirmed by the Senate September 13, 2006 and sworn in on September 26, 2006. He launched an initiative known as the "50 and Over," to increase the participation of older men and women with defined skills and abilities.

[ edit ] Peace Corps in the media [ edit ] Books about the Peace Corps Hundreds of Returned Peace Corps volunteers have written books about their countries of service [20] but five books that are among the most notable for capturing the positive and the negative of the Peace Corps experience are the following: Published in 1969, Moritz Thomsen 's Living Poor recounts the author's service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador. [21] RPCV Paul Theroux said that Living Poor was the best book he ever read on the Peace Corps experience [22] and Tom Miller wrote that Thomsen was "one of the great American expatriate writers of the 20th century." [21] "And as an expat, he was free to judge us all, an undertaking he finessed with acute observations, self-deprecation, and a flavorful frame of reference that ranged from a Tchaikovsky symphony to a Sealy Posturpedic mattress." [21] Alan Weiss's 1968 account of Peace Corps training, High Risk, High Gain, has been called "perhaps the most obscure, least known, and most unread" of all the great books written about the Peace Corps experience.

[23] Trainees in those days were classified by risk and by gain and Weiss discovered in his training days that he had been classified as High Risk/High Gain, a potential "Supervolunteer" or a potential "crash and burn." [23] Weiss's book is funny, outrageous and sad but also valuable because it captures the “craziness” of those early years at the Peace Corps. [23] George Packer's The Village of Waiting (1988) is "one of the most wrenchingly honest books ever written by a white person about Africa, a bracing antidote to romantic authenticity myths and exotic horror stories alike," wrote Matt Steinglass. [24] Isak Dinesen, Packer notes, wrote of waking in the Kenyan highlands and thinking, "Here I am, where I ought to be." Packer himself woke up sweating, hungry, "mildly at ease, or mildly anxious. But never where I ought to be." [24] For a history of the Peace Corps' early days, Coates Redmond's Come as You Are recounts the birth of the Peace Corps and how it was literally thrown together in a matter of weeks.

"The book works as a charming, first-person history of the people who made the corps what it was in its formative years," says Charles DeBenedetti at the University of Toledo. [25] "This book is highly readable and essential to understand the evolution of the unique Peace Corps spirit and style that continues to characterize the agency almost 45 years later," wrote Maureen Carroll, an early Peace Corps volunteer. [26] Tom Bissell served as a Peace Corps volunteer for a few months in Uzbekistan in 1996 before he "early terminated". However, Bissell felt he had really failed the people he joined the Peace Corps to help, so he returned to Uzbekistan in 2001 to write Chasing the Sea about the Aral Sea. However, "the secret, personal point of the journey was revisiting this failure of mine, to try to make something up to the country and people I’d abandoned," says Bissell. [27] "My ambitions were actually pretty modest. I wanted to write a book that everyone who traveled to Central Asia would want to read, and I wanted to write a book that everyone who joins the Peace Corps has pressed upon them," Bissell said.

[27] [27] [ edit ] Films about the Peace Corps In popular culture, the Peace Corps has been used as a comedic plot device in such movies as Airplane , Shallow Hal , Christmas with the Kranks , and Volunteers or used to set the scene for a historic era as when Frances "Baby" Houseman tells the audience she plans to join the Peace Corps in the introduction to the movie Dirty Dancing . The Peace Corps has also been documented on film and examined more seriously and in more depth in movies such as the following: Jimi Sir, released in 2007, is a documentary portrait of Peace Corps volunteer James Parks' experiences as a high school science, math and English teacher during the last 10 weeks of his service in Nepal . [28] James speaks Nepali fluently and brings you into a culture where there are no roads, vehicles, electricity, plumbing, telephone or radio. [28] Jimi Sir has been called the best movie ever made about the Peace Corps experience.

[28] The 2006 movie Death of Two Sons, directed by Micah Schaffer juxtaposes the deaths of Amadou Diallo , a Guinean in America who was gunned down by four New York City policemen with 41 bullets and Peace Corps volunteer Jesse Thyne who lived with Amadou's family in Guinea and died in a car crash there. [29] The two men never met, but their destinies intertwine in this unique documentary. [29] While it may seem preposterous to many Americans, many Colombians believe that Peace Corps volunteers first taught Colombians how to process coca leaves into cocaine. [30] U.S. officials and Peace Corps volunteers have long denied the allegations, but some Colombian historians and journalists have kept it alive for years. [30] The movie El Rey directed and written by Antonio Dorado in 2004 attacks corrupt police, unscrupulous politicians and half-hearted revolutionaries but also portrays Peace Corps volunteers as having participated in the beginnings of cocaine processing in Colombia. [30] The 1970 movie ¿Qué Hacer?

filmed in Chile and directed by Saul Landau on the eve of the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, tells the story of CIA agent Martin who is sent to Chile to recruit Suzanne, a Peace Corps volunteer. [31] Suzanne instead falls for the Chilean revolutionary Hugo and gets involved in a plot to kidnap Martin. [31] Suzanne finally realizes that the revolution must be fought, but that for her the fight is back in the USA. [31] In the 1969 film Yawar Mallku/Sangre de condor/Blood of the Condor, Bolivian Director Jorge Sanjines portrayed "Peace Corps volunteers in the campo as arrogant, ethnocentric, and narrow-minded imperialists out to destroy Indian culture. One particularly powerful scene showed Indians attacking a clinic while the volunteers inside sterilized Indian women against their will." [32] The film is thought to be at least partially responsible for the expulsion of the Peace Corps from Bolivia in 1971. [32] Peace Corps volunteer Fred Krueger who was serving in Bolivia at the time said, "It was an effective movie - emotionally very arousing - and it directly targeted Peace Corps volunteers.

I thought I would be lynched before getting out of the theatre. To my amazement, people around me smiled courteously as we left, no one commented, it was just like any other movie." [32] [ edit ] Notable Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Let Peace Be Our Culture Let Peace Be Our Culture Wednesday, July 13, 2011 Intercultural competence Intercultural competence is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures. A person who is interculturally competent captures and understands, in interaction with people from foreign cultures, their specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling and acting. Earlier experiences are considered, free from prejudices; there is an interest and motivation to continue learning. >>> to go deeper on topic click @ Posted by Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. Generally, the work is related to social and economic development.

Each program participant, (aka Peace Corps Volunteer), is an American citizen, typically with a college degree, who works abroad for a period of 24 months after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. After 24 months of service, volunteers can request an extension of service.[2] It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The act declares the program's purpose as follows: To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps and have served in 139 countries. Source:

Question: September 22, 1961 saw the passage of Public Law 87-293, which declares "To promote world peace and friendship through a [blank], which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower."
Answer: Peace Corps